$89.95 $49.97
Click here to Get “Earth 4 Energy” Now!

The problem for many people who want to reduce their carbon footprint and reduce their energy bills by using solar power, is the cost of installing a system in their home as it can be frighteningly expensive. Most solar electric products seem to start at around $8000 for an average house, although this does include all the materials and fittings. Which is fine if you can afford it, but if you can’t what are your options – DIY or build a solar panel?

One of the cheapest options is to buy the photovoltaic solar panels and fit them yourself or an even cheaper option is to “build a solar panel”. I read about a couple of people who can build a 100 watt panel for about $200 and at this cost it fits into most people’s budgets. However, solar panels can seem a little complicated and where on earth do you start to go about building one?

I am not the most technical of people and anything to do with converting sunlight into electricity and electrical circuits, normally goes straight over the top of my head.

However, I had the good luck of reading about Michael Harvey who is a self proclaimed renewable energy enthusiast. He builds his own solar panels and got so good at it that he wanted to share his knowledge with the rest of us. Therefore, he wrote a book called Earth 4 Energy. It is a step by step guide to building your own solar powered electrical system for running electrical appliances inside your home. I have to say I am often disappointed with DIY books because for some reason they never get to show you, in detail, how to do the tricky bits.

However, with is book you can see exactly how to do it. The bit that concerned me the most about building my own solar panel was assembling and wiring the solar cells together because if you get this bit wrong then everything else is a complete waste of time. Well, I was so impressed with the two videos that came this eBook. You can see exactly how to assemble and solder the cells together, and in fact it is really simple, you don’t need any special skills and is simpler than assembling a flat packed bookshelf! This is the main reason why I feel very happy to recommend it to my readers.

What this book gives you is:

• A step by step plan on how to build a solar panel.
• Advice on where to get solar cells to make your solar panels at greatly reduced prices.
• A complete list of materials you need to build a solar panel – cells, board, flexi-glass etc.
• A complete list of tools you need to build a solar panel – volt meter, soldering iron, copper wiring etc.
• Two videos showing you exactly how to wire the solar cells together to make the solar panel – which are excellent!
• Advice on how to charge a battery and live off grid or connect to your home’s electrical wiring system via the AC breaker panel.
• Tips on how to maintain your solar panels.
• Excellent support with a 12 hour response time for emails.

If you want to save money and learn how to build your own electric solar panels to generate electricity for your home then this book is a must read. It has to be one of the cheapest ways to generate electricity.

$89.95 $49.97
Click here to Get “Earth 4 Energy” Now!

Michael Harvey is a renewable energy enthusiast, he has a great passion for environmental issues and loves to help people generate their own electricity and that is why he wrote this book.

You have probably heard many times that you can build a solar panel and reduce your energy bills by thousands of dollars over the lifetime of your home. Friends, neighbours, TV, everybody seems to be putting a solar powered system on their roof or in their yard to generate electricity to heat their home and produce hot water. If you ever wondered how to go about it then read on.

If you are looking for detailed instructions, then have a look at this review on how to build a solar panel.

Here is one way on how to create or build a cheap home-made solar panel.  The methods are extremely simple, making the process possible for everyone. Here’s how:

Know how many watts you need to generate to power your home or office, etc. You can do this by getting your monthly utility bill and finding the average electrical consumption per month and dividing it by 30 (days) giving you your daily kilowatt/hour consumption per day.

The next step is to calculate how many solar arrays you need to make to meet your electrical consumption needs. Say for example you are consuming 14-kilowatt hours/day. An average array can generate 840 milliwatts per square feet. So you would need about 40,000 square inches or 285 square feet of photovoltaic cells for your house.

Monocrystalline and polycrystalline Solar cells are extremely expensive so to be able to save money try these simple tips:

1. Do not buy branded name products. A 70-watt cell is a 70-watt cell.

2. Purchase small units:  6-30 watt panels can cost half the amount of a 45-watt.

3. Look for free panels, contact your local DMV for used parts and see if you can get them for free or for just a few bucks.

Once you have acquired all your solar panels, mount them on a flat sheet of plastic or hardboard. Connect each cell to each other. Solder the cells together using thin soldering wire. Cover the cells with a sheet of Perspex.

The next step is to find the best place to locate your array. Using an amp reader and a volt meter, calculate the incoming amps by connecting to the panel and then slowly lift the top edge of the panel, facing into the sunlight, until the amps hit the highest point on your meter and then secure in position.

Having your solar panels installed, storage now comes into the picture.  To store the electricity produced you will need deep-cycle batteries.  Unlike your car battery, which is a shallow-cycle battery, deep-cycle batteries can be run right down while still maintaining long life. Copper wire is used to connect the panels to the batteries.

The commonly used deep-cycle batteries are lead-acid batteries and nickel-cadmium batteries. Nickel-cadmium batteries are more expensive, but last longer and can lose more of their charge without causing problems.

The use of batteries to store power requires installation of a charge controller to make it last for a long time.  A charge controller makes sure that fully charged batteries don’t get overloaded. It also makes sure that once the batteries have been drained to a predetermined level, they will be shut-off until they have been recharged.

Ever heard of the two types of electricity?  The two types of electricity are AC and DC.  DC is the electric current stored in batteries while AC is the current that most home appliance’s use.  To utilize the electricity stored in the batteries you will need an inverter. It is advised to use separate small inverters in every room.  This way if an inverter malfunctions only part of the house will be affected.

You should be able to build a 100 watt panel in about a day, so it shouldn’t take too long to cover all your residential home electricity needs.